The Ram Janmabhoomi issue has revived among Muslims a chronic, deep-seated feeling of persecution. The disenchantment runs deep. Peasants, politicians, lawyers and shopkeepers recently interviewed at random in the Rohilkhand area - the Muslim heart of north India - spoke as if with one voice.

While there was no indication that they are ready to plunge into precipitous radical action they are clearly a bitter, despairing lot who readily lay their misfortunes - whether real or imagined - squarely at the doorstep of communalism and discrimination. Their demands are not for the creation of a Utopian holy land or for a new political party but for things far simpler-jobs, equality, better police protection, more graveyard land to bury their dead.

"If a Muslim wants a job, he has to bribe. If we complain to a thana they refuse to write our reports."Ali Mohammed

One senior Muslim government official explained: "In order to escape from the harshness of everyday life which they find degrading, Muslims by and large have retreated into what they consider to be an impenetrable shell of their own religion and personal laws.But now they see even this last bastion of protection crumbling under what they consider to be orchestrated assaults. They feel cornered."

Even though Muslims constitute 11 per cent of the population, their representation in all areas of government is disproportionately low. They form less than 5 per cent of the IAS and less than 0.5 per cent of high court judges. Their representation in the police has slipped from an all-time high of 33 per cent to less than 8 per cent. And there is a growing awareness among the Muslims that they have begun to slide disastrously from even the traditionally secure economic footholds on which they had once perched.

Moradabad is a city of about 11 lakh inhabitants, more than half of them Muslims. It was a relatively prosperous Muslim community with about 75 per cent of them involved in the brass and bartan trade as manufacturers, artisans and exporters boasting of a Rs 100-crore export business. But in the last few years business has fallen by more than 75 per cent. One major reason was the 1980 riots in which about 400 people were killed. The curfews and disturbances that followed led to stoppages in production and cancellation of export orders.

Ali Mohammed (left): shattered dreams

"Wherever the Muslims have prospered, like in Azamgarh and Tanda, there have been riots."Fakre-E-Alam

Today, thousands of Muslim artisans, once proud craftsmen, are driving rickshaws. It is also true that most riots have occurred in areas of relative Muslim prosperity, providing ammunition to politicians peddling sinister theories.

Dr S. Shamim, Moradabad-based president of the state Muslim League, still continues to denounce the riots as a "conspiracy" aimed at "crushing Muslims and their independence in areas where they have greater economic strength and cannot be taken for granted as vote banks for the Congress." Adds Fakr-e-Alam, a lawyer from Bareilly and also a Lok Dal party leader: "Wherever the Ansari (weaver) Muslims have prospered, like in Azamgarh and Tanda, there have been riots." Time was when Budaun buzzed with Muslim cloth merchants, timber merchants, and bicycle store owners. No more. The Muslims in the area have been gradually pauperised. More than 70 per cent of them are now casual labourers, weavers and mechanics.

Ali Mohammed is 105 years old. He lives with his six sons, 15 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren in a crowded urban ghetto in Budaun. The family - all uneducated - ekes out a living grazing cattle. He is a bitter man: "Some people went from here to Pakistan. I said, let them go. When Allah gives, he will give us here. But we're treated worse than dogs. If a Muslim wants a job, he has to give a bribe. If we complain to a thana they refuse to write our reports and give us a few kicks for good measure."

Muslim peasants, rooted to their soil for millenia, may be no worse off than their Hindu counterparts but their resentment is coloured by a siege mentality. No five-year plan or 20-point programme has ever touched Manikpur village, once part of the Shekhupur jaidad. Here live about 3,000 Muslims who collectively own less than 900 big has of land much of it unworkable because it is waterlogged. Where not a soul from Manikpur left for Pakistan after Partition, its youngsters are now leaving in droves to look for work in Delhi and Bombay.

The disappearance of graveyard land has hit the village so hard that the residents are forced to bury their dead in small portions of their already cultivated fields. Says Mohammad Isaq. village contractor: "There is really nothing for us here any more. My younger brother has a high school certificate, the first to be educated in our family. But he has to do mazdoori in town just to be able to eat. Even our Muslim leaders have not helped us."

The mood of degradation and despair was summed up by Bismillah jaan, a widow, who labours for Rs 5 a day. "The fact is we are a fallen people," she says. "If a Hindu falls down, another Hindu helps pick him up. We are left to our own devices. The Hindu community must try and understand us and pick us up."

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